38th Parallel

After over a year of sheltering tight, the Covid vaccination is giving us the lift we need to think about enjoying time with other people. We laughingly now say, “Hey, come on over and see what we did during our Covid vacation."

When “outside and distance” became the new normal, we realized that here at RanchoD we have plenty of both. Inspired by the likes of open-air sculpture parks of Storm King in New York and Oliver Ranch in Sonoma, we are creating and placing sculptures on our property.

Welcome to Art Mind Park

On Saturday July 31, we hosted a group of ten people and two dogs from the 38°N Explorers Club for an official inaugural tour of our gardens and sculpture grounds. Thanks to Steve Dunsky for organizing the excursion of folks associated with the Visions of the Wild film festival. This year the festival went online and around the world introducing us to planetary citizens concerned with place and our place in it.

Visions of the Wild sponsored the Global Recycled Plastic Art Challenge introducing our One Beach Plastic project and Shannon and Kathy O’Hares’ Obtainium.

The Nature, Sculture, Community program featured Steve Oliver (Oliver Ranch) and Dana Turkovic  (Laumeier Sculpture Park) 

First stop on our AMP tour: signing in... 

Then we proceeded to the walk the walk and talk the talk about the biological imperative that connects the artworks in our outdoor arena: The Gate, The Drought Dots, The Shrine. Check out Art Mind Park blog a repository for more stories the sculptures/artworks. AMP is still very much a work in progress. Yes, it is the creative process that motivates — the visions of what we have not made yet that keep moving us forward.

Surrounded by the glorious and eye-dazzling images in Richard’s studio, the potluck offerings were delicious and the conversation was lively. Everything goes better with the Large Hadron Collider.

In the afternoon, a smaller group was on its way to Kehoe Beach. 

With the blamy ocean air and the sand swept clean, for most people on the beach, plastic was far from mind. But, as we like to say, "we're professional" and so were the other enthusiasts from our group. Before long we had collected plenty of common shards and recognizable pieces along with a couple of rare finds.

Steve discovered a new geological category of glomerate - glasstiglomerate (campfire melted beer bottle with embedded rocks) akin to the plastiglomerate we used in our Reading Stones.

Dragana retrieved this bolt, getting it out of the waste stream. It goes into the special collection of Bricolage, the moniker the French Dadaists used to refer to objects to be repurposed in a McGiver-like action. A Bricoleur is a handyperson, a DIYer, who can make something out of nothing. We are long practitioners in this industrial-age re-use fun and frolic.

Such a pleasure to share with kindred spirits, among so many other things, the 38th Parallel.